


dizzy drunken dream

by ionlyloveyouironically



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Emetophobia, Goofy Adam, M/M, Sick Fic, TW Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionlyloveyouironically/pseuds/ionlyloveyouironically
Summary: Adam gets sick and decides he's peachy keen anyway.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Title from Trampoline by The Unlikely Candidates.
> 
> Follow me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/1980salienboi) and [tumblr](http://1980salienboi.tumblr.com/)

Adam knew as soon as he woke up that today would be miserable. He’d had a scratchy throat the entire previous day, and now he couldn’t say more than two words without coughing. His head ached, his hands trembled, and he oscillated between being far too cold and far too hot.

The bright side was that he only had school today; all his shifts aligned like the cosmos to grant him a single day off. School was a treat, and then he had an entire evening off to do whatever he liked.

He got ready slowly, not wanting to move too fast. It took him five minutes to realize he was trying to put his shoe on the wrong foot, and then ten more minutes downstairs to look for his keys that he was holding in his hand the entire time.

Maybe he shouldn’t drive.

The sun was only just breaking over the horizon. He had enough time to walk to Monmouth and beg a ride off Gansey, so he set off. In the end he was glad for it because he needed time to get used to walking. All his joints felt as if they were actually inches apart instead of connected, and he imagined himself as a segmented surrealist painting. _Boy Walks Down Street_ , 2017. A masterpiece.

He only realized he made it to Monmouth when he knocked on the door. Gansey pulled it open, dressed in only the entire upper half of his uniform and boxers. They regarded each other for a moment, vaguely confused for different reasons, before they blurted at the same time,

“Adam! What are you doing here?”

“What happened to your pants?”

Adam was the first to continue. “I shouldn’t drive right now. Where-”

“I was just looking for them.” Gansey retreated inside. Adam followed. “What do you mean you shouldn’t drive? Are you okay?” He found his pants draped over his desk and pulled them on, looking concernedly over at Adam.

“I’m peachy keen,” he answered seriously, flopping down onto the couch. Gansey had only bought it eight months previously when he had the small breakdown in the Glendower quest, and it was already flattened and torn in some places. Adam had a suspicion most of the tearing had been from Ronan in an effort to provoke Blue.

“Adam,” Gansey called, and Adam lifted his head. How long had he been staring at his knees? “Did you… need a ride to school?”

Adam bobbed his head. “Yep, if it’s not a problem.”

Gansey stared at him for a moment with his hands halfway out of his pants where he’d paused in tucking his shirt in. Something struck Adam, a feeling that something was off with Gansey’s unGanseylike pauses and hesitance, but it was swept away as the other boy pulled his mask on.

  
____________________________________________

(7:53 AM)

Gansey 3.0: I’m driving Adam to school, you should pick him up after. I don’t think he has work today.

Gansey 3.0: He doesn’t, I just asked. I think something may be wrong with him. He’s very acquiescent today.

(8:59 AM)

Gansey 3.0: Something is definitely wrong with him.

(9:26 AM)

Gansey 3.0: Ronan.

Gansey 3.0: Ronan.

Gansey 3.0: Ronan, I know you don’t sleep this much, so you must be deliberately ignoring me.

(9:31 AM)

Ronan: ye

Ronan: whats wrong w him

(10:05 AM)

Gansey 3.0: He’s acting like a drunk person.

Ronan: ?????

Gansey 3.0: He’s all

Gansey 3.0: Floppy. And silly.

(10:16 AM)

Ronan: ????????????

Gansey 3.0: Just please pick him up after school.

Ronan: as u wish

Gansey 3.0: I love that movie!

Ronan: fuck off

____________________________________________

School was something of a daze. Adam swam through it and took impeccable notes even though he felt like a scarecrow come to life. He imagined himself in the scarecrow’s place in the Wizard of Oz.

Gansey seem distracted by his phone the majority of the day, so Adam only needed to worry about seeming normal to Henry, who made it very easy by keeping up a one-sided string of unending babble. Adam was okay with it because Henry really had a soothing voice, which was made nicer by his Vancouver accent.

When they saw him in the morning, Henry had pulled out two water bottles from his backpack and thrust them at Gansey and Adam, going on a spiel about how important it was to stay hydrated before either of them could refuse. He kept appearing at Adam’s side in the hallways throughout the day with a new bottle, commanding him to “Hydrate yourself!” before disappearing once again.

Adam paid him no mind. He was usually stranger than this.

Everything felt like it wasn’t really happening, or was happening to someone he was standing right next to. It was a familiar feeling to him, and he knew it was because of the fever, but he welcomed it anyway. The only times he actually felt present were during lunch when he ate more than he should have and started feeling weird, and when school finally let out and he followed Gansey to the parking lot and nearly ran smack into Ronan.

____________________________________________

Gansey was an idiot. He had a great vocabulary, and could work his magic among the highest social classes regardless of all the subtle rules Ronan still hasn’t been able to grasp, but _god_ , what an idiot.

It was blatantly obvious that Adam was not “being weird”, but instead had a fever. Probably a high one, judging by the way Henry hovered by Adam’s side like a worried little worker bee. And how Adam stared at Ronan like he couldn’t _for the life of him_ fathom why Ronan was here at all.

“Stop staring, Parrish,” he snapped.

Adam blinked, and then he grinned. “Hey, Ronan.”

Ronan was struck dumb for a moment. Adam looked mostly normal, except he was paler than usual with two spots of color high on his cheeks. But he rarely, if ever, smiled so openly and happily. He actually looked kind of dopey, but Ronan attributed that to the fever he most surely had. Then there was the _drawl_. Adam wasn’t covering up his accent.

Ronan wondered if there was ever going to be a version of Adam that couldn’t make him feel like this.

“Ronan’s here to spirit you away, I’m afraid,” Gansey cut in, ruining the mood. He stepped up to Adam and held his fist out, which Adam stared at blankly for a moment before bumping it with his own and smiling openly at Gansey. Ronan wondered if he always felt like that and hid it or if being sick made him more emotional.

Cheng insisted he and Adam complete their drawn-out secret handshake, and Ronan used the opportunity to pull Gansey aside. “What the fuck is wrong with you? This isn’t ‘weird’.”

“Yes, it very well is! You see how he is!”

Ronan took a deep breath. “Gansey. He has a fever.”

Gansey’s eyes widened. “How can you tell?” He looked over to where Cheng was manhandling Adam’s limp hand. “I didn’t even realize… Oh, dear. He shouldn’t have even been at school today-”

“Don’t beat yourself up.” Ronan snorted. “If Parrish decided he was going to come to school, you couldn’t have stopped him.”

Gansey did the Gansey equivalent of pouting, which was a beautiful, thoughtful expression. “You’re right, of course.”

“I know.” Ronan grinned sharply at Gansey and then went to Adam and tapped him lightly on the lower back. Adam turned and smiled dopily again. “Ready to go? Are you thirsty or anything?”

“Nope, Henry’s kept me hydrated all day.” He punctuated this by reaching a hand up and patting Cheng’s hair the way one would a hedgehog. Cheng looked delighted.

Ronan bundled Adam into the BMW and sped out of the parking lot. Soon they were on the way to the Barns, Ronan’s music playing on low. Adam sat sideways on his seat, deaf ear pressed against the headrest, eyes half open. The dopey happiness from earlier seemed to have left him, in its place the absolute misery of being sick. Ronan took his hand off the gearshift long enough to press his wrist to Adam’s forehead. _Way too hot._

“Ronan,” Adam said plaintively after a while. They were about twenty minutes out.

Ronan grunted.

“I feel funny.”

Ronan looked over, noted how green Adam’s face had gotten, and swerved onto the shoulder just in time for Adam to throw open the door and retch into the dirt. Ronan released the seatbelt after watching him fight for a moment, and Adam stumbled over to a nearby tree to lean against. Ronan could hear the continued sounds of gagging from where he still sat in the car.

Ronan had a distinct memory from his childhood of Declan suddenly throwing up all over the hallway floor. He had run to get his father, but Niall had taken one look at a still-crying Declan and the vomit all over the floor, panicked, and called for Aurora. She had taken Declan into his room and put him to bed while his father had stayed out to clean the hallway.

Ronan was very much like his father, and this was just another example. Sick animals were easy to care for. Humans, not so much. He’d rather stay far away and clean up after them rather than actually caring for them himself.

Adam eventually stumbled back to the car, dug a water bottle from his backpack, and swished some water around in his mouth. He spat it out over his shoulder in a way that struck Ronan as terribly and attractively masculine. “Sorry about that. ‘M good now.” He settled back in his seat and shut the door.

Ronan nodded and pulled back onto the road.

When they reached the Barns, it was just past four PM and Adam seemed to be on his last legs. He wobbled up the porch steps in front of Ronan and made his way to the kitchen, where Ronan thought he’d get a drink of water before asking to sleep, _like a normal person_ , but instead he sat down at the table and started spreading his schoolbooks out.

Homework. He was deciding to do _homework_.

Ronan hated this boy.

He planted a hand in the middle of the textbook Adam was reading in order to force him to look up at Ronan. He was still pale and glassy-eyed, and he’d retched so hard earlier that broken blood vessels dotted around his cheekbones.

“Parrish, what the fuck are you doing?”

Adam gaped at him slightly. “The reading for the quiz on Wednesday.”

Ronan swore and left the room. He came back in moments later with a thermometer that he really had to fight Adam to open up for. He swore again when it beeped to indicate it was finished.

“Are you fucking kidding me? It says 102.9, Adam. That’s one degree away from a hospital trip.”

“I’m perfectly fine, Ronan. I feel much better now.”

“Yeah, after you threw up across half the damn state. You need to go to bed, before I call Gansey and tell him exactly what’s wrong with you.”

Adam scoffed. “You wouldn’t do that.”

Ronan took out his phone.

____________________________________________

(4:27 PM)

Ronan: wanna know adams temp

Gansey 3.0: How high is it???

Ronan: 1(%’:+%’vulgwscas

Gansey 3.0: ??? Ronan???

Ronan: nvm he said hed go to bed

Gansey 3.0: I still would like to know.

(4:38 PM)

Gansey 3.0: Ronan?

____________________________________________

Everything felt nice. He had been wary of taking medicine because he didn’t want to throw up anymore. He told Ronan he hated throwing up, but Ronan said it would be fine, and Adam trusted him.

Adam sighed when he felt a cool washcloth placed on his head. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

“You don’t have to thank me, moron,” Ronan grumbled.

Adam smiled. He was so tired all of a sudden. He looked at Ronan where he sat by the bed. “My joints have been three inches apart from each other all day.”

Ronan seemed to understand. “You have to rest when you feel like that. Why in the hell did you even go to school?”

“Couldn’ miss any more.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’d always have to stay home b’cause… stuff… I don’t wanna do that anymore.”

Ronan exhaled loudly through his nose. “This isn’t _stuff_ ,” he said mockingly. “When you get sick, you need to fucking sleep.”

“M’kay.” Adam closed his eyes and relaxed against the pillow more fully. “I’m gonna sleep.”

“Shut up and do it.” In contrast to the harsh words, his fingers carded through the hair on top of Adam’s head softly. It was the best thing Adam had ever felt.

He sighed, and went to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Is Gansey's name in Ronan's phone an allusion to his lineage or the number of times he's been alive? Who knows?
> 
> Sick fic bc I'm sick and miserable. Not proofread as is my norm
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/1980sghostboy) and [tumblr](http://www.1980sghostboy.tumblr.com)


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